


The Seeker

by Vitalipok



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternative Universe - University, Angst, M/M, MCR, POV Gerard, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 10:17:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2344769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vitalipok/pseuds/Vitalipok
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you think you're the seeker?".<br/>The difference in their age is six years, it is necessary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Ищущий](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/74648) by Krista. 



> This is a start for a long journey called "The Seeker". I concider this work the best in Russian fanfiction and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as Russian fans.
> 
> Special thanks to Lizz who corrects all my silly mistakes.

I had started keeping my diary long before those events and for a quite long time hadn’t touched it. I don’t know why – either because I was ashamed of looking at the pages and understanding what an idiot I had been, painstakingly putting on paper worthless memories and absolutely senseless facts of my boring biography, or because something truly genuine had started happening in my life. Probably according to the fact if a man keeps his diary or not we can surely judge how his life is saturated with those very genuine, true events. I was living—having abandoned my diary, having forgotten my drawings—I was really living those several months. I was living that very life, those very hours and minutes which make you understand that you shouldn’t waste your life on sorting your thoughts, feelings and events that have already happened – the only important thing is what is happening here and now, only this has genuine value. Because yesterday has already happened and the next minute may never come – who knows? But it doesn’t matter after all. I couldn’t understand it before, but now I know exactly. But what’s the use of it if I’m not going to use this knowledge? 

And only now, several months after all this had ended, I finally venture to admit to myself that my life has returned to its former state—empty and worthless. Gray. Or maybe it had never changed, and I myself had never changed at all? Yes, maybe. Maybe I was skillfully deceiving myself, having stolen shining light of other life and having emitted it as my own. Maybe I was simply allowed to bathe in it. But it’s over now and I cannot put it off any longer. I want to capture the events of the past months and immediately put them on these hatful pages. 

Why?

In order to reread those accounts until the end of my days, hiding them in a locked desk drawer from my wife and children—whom I will inevitably acquire sooner or later.

In order to burn them down as soon as I finish them.

Or, like all similar fools secretly cherish the ridiculous hope that this diary will somehow mysteriously materialize into his hands and he will read it. Sometime…

In the end, all I can do is to sit here and eagerly recollect. What should I start with? I don’t know myself. With the first day? With that very first goddamned day? Should I mention what a terrible headache I had on that day? Or how bleak, gray and dismal the weather was? Simply dreary. And my headache was almost unbearable. I don’t even know why I decided to get into the car that morning and go to the university. Maybe the reason was that I am twenty-six years old and still live with my parents. I don’t know, I can’t tell exactly. I’m not a big fan of conversing with my classmates--unsophisticated jerks—the majority of which are at least four years younger than me. But that day I preferred to be stuck among them listening to the lecture, sprawled over my desk, freely daydreaming on the elbow of my classmate, who was nonetheless sleepy, and listening to the dimensional mumbling of our elderly teacher. It all was better than being home with my mother.

Heavy rain drops were banging on the window, echoing off the walls of the classroom, and it made me want to sleep even more. Somewhere above me under the high ceiling a milky blue lamp was unevenly buzzing. Matthew Kirby was perpetually sniffling in the back row of the classroom. I immediately knew it was him because he always did so. With his constant colds and chronic sinusitis, everyone in the university could tell when he was approaching because the horrible sound of his sniffling gave him away.

It seemed like the lamp was buzzing louder and louder, wafting vibrations through the air towards me. I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep.

I was watching probably the tenth dream in a row when something underneath me started to move and eventually I was hit in the ear with an elbow. I twitched, abruptly straightened and squinted, blinded by the light. Our lecturer continued to ramble while I tried to remember my location. He was standing in the very first row, his hand was on the shoulder of a strange looking creature, the teacher’s tedious voice was reading the information from a sheet. 

My ears refused to obey me, apparently stuck somewhere between dream and reality, so I couldn’t figure out what he was mumbling under his nose. I blinked trying to get a better view of that strange person. And I immediately got ripples in my eyes because of the terrible combination of colours: green skinny jeans and a bright red hoodie. 

I had never considered myself a tall person, but this oddball was at least a head shorter than me.

He had dark, short, inexplicably asymmetrical hair, with rare glimpses dyed red and white. He was the spitting image of a parrot. His big eyes were inquisitively viewing every student from under his long bangs. When I managed to thoroughly examine him with my nearsighted eyes from the third row and my mind finally started to wake up, I heard the whisper that quickly spread over the classroom. Jane, my desk mate, orientated immediately, and I could hear scraps of her hasty mumbling. 

Frank Iro, another piece of living meat for the slaughterhouse of our public. There were several butchers in our university who were especially eager for such specimens.

I was surprised when I discovered that this guy had gotten here by transfer. In my opinion, no sane student would transfer to this goddamned institution by his own will.

The lecturer finally finished his illegible chatter, folded the sheet of paper in half, shoved it into the pocket of his jacket and let the boy go. He lightly ran up the stairs holding the strap of his impressive looking gray backpack, quickly found a vacant seat to my left, and flopped down next to me so that the whole row shook and rumbled.

I instinctively moved closer to Jane wanting to lean on her again and have a nap but the newcomer disemboweled the majority of the contents of his backpack onto the table, puffing and turning his head towards me, smiling from ear to ear.

“Do you mind me sitting here, don’t you?” he whispered, bending over the table, his eyes wandering over my face. 

What a stupid formulation of the question. I cringed involuntarily. 

The hoodie was too big for him, his hair on the back was cut much shorter than his long bangs that fell onto his face and almost completely hid his right eye. There was a primitively tattooed scorpion on his neck below the ear...

Not receiving any answer, the newcomer smiled only wider, constantly chewing a gum of an annoyingly bright green colour, which flickered quickly between his white teeth. He had quite good teeth, the lower teeth were a bit uneven, but still quite good.

I tried forcing my mind to return to its sleepy state, but the overall brightness of this guy annoyed me. Especially his wide smile. I had always believed that only a complete idiot will smile from ear to ear to an absolute stranger and openly stare at them as if they have voluntarily offered themselves up for a universal review.

"You've already sat here." — I stated grimly. 

Because of the way this parrot almost laid himself on the table, he seemed to be much smaller. The smile slowly disappeared from his face, but his eyes continued attentively studying my face. He even brushed aside his bangs, because I was so fucking interesting.

I wanted to say something about it, but Jane unceremoniously pushed me away with her bony elbow, occupying my rightful piece of table, and smiled. Heavily sighing, I leaned back against my seat, giving her an opportunity to get close to the desired object.

"Hi! I'm Jane. You're Frank Iro, right?" she whispered, however the entire classroom could probably hear her. At least fifteen people from the two nearest rows turned their heads.

The newcomer began to smile again. I thought that his smile was girlish, improbably wide, and lightened up his face very unexpectedly and rapidly like a bulb. I blindly stared at the blackboard noticing the boy shaking his head:

“It’s Iero.”

“What?” – Jane stupidly flapped her eyelashes. She always understands everything very slowly. 

“Not Iro. Ieeeeeero,” – he chanted diligently suppressing the vowel and stressing the “e”.

Jane blinked again and suddenly painfully punched me in the ribs with her fist:

“Okay, got it. And this is Gerard.”

I glanced at the boy, fearing he would switch his attention back to me. And so it happened. Big hazel eyes started to study my face again. Damn, does he always smile?

“Gerard?” he clarified. What a moron…

“It’s Geraaaard, not Geeeerard,” – I corrected reluctantly.

And suddenly this parrot laughed so unexpectedly that I shuddered and turned to him with my full body. He had sonorous and terribly silly laughter. Our old lecturer irritably coughed. Frank quickly covered his mouth with his hand, shyly blushing and switching to a whisper again:

“You have a sense of humor!” he pointed out blatantly, as if I didn’t know it myself.

“Funny.” This weirdo couldn’t calm down, his eyes wondering from me to Jane and back. 

“What’s funny?” I mumbled involuntarily, trying to push my classmate away and finally free some space for me to sleep.

“Funny,” he repeated; and suddenly wrinkling his nose and continuing his smiling, stated, “Jane and Gerard. Quite amusing.”

I nearly fell off my chair. Golly, he really is a fool.

Somehow pushing Jane back, I laid my head on my crossed arms and turned away from this idiot, hoping he would finally leave me alone. The girl gave me condemning look, pursing her already thin lips. I just closed my eyes. I didn’t manage to fall asleep again because the colourful little beast constantly fidgeted, spun and shoved his notebook, which painfully stuck into my shoulder with its corner. 

By the end of the lecture I was ready to kill him. As we were preparing to leave, he shoved all his stuff into the pockets of his backpack, finally jumped out to the gangway, and asked cheerfully:

“Where’s the bathroom here?”

Honestly, I never liked Jane. But when the peremptory said: “Gerard will lead you”, I simply stood up, threw the strap of my bag over my shoulder, and left without a word, bumping the newcomer with my shoulder on my way out. I was utterly irritated, and the mere thought of having to prowl about the university with this prick made me shudder … I would have simply killed him.


	2. Chapter 2

Frankly speaking, I had never craved to be the center of attention. There were a lot of people among students who simply didn’t notice me, but there was also a group of adoring fans. I don’t exaggerate, believe me. For example: Jane – she’s an utter fool, but her elbow is so comfortable to sleep on. She often annoys me. Similar to Matt Kirby, who, by the way, was nearly crazy about me as well. A bit strange, foolish, and sickly, he was a chatterbox and a drug addict, having been on crack since the first year. But he was a funny guy. Maybe that was the reason I endured him. But he’s no longer with us. I have noticed this tendency: people always adore those who don’t give a shit about them. And I didn’t give a shit about anyone since the very first day of my studying there, perhaps even since I was born – I’m not sure. I was never talkative or noisy, but I never lacked for pride – maybe that’s the matter. Maybe that’s why people like Kirby and Jane have always been striving after me, and probably will strive for my whole live, no matter what. To be honest, I don’t think that I should brag about it. I simply have never had anything beside it. Guys like me were a mystery to that type of people. I think the reason they clung on was because they didn’t represent anything themselves… I thought that this weirdo was one of them. Unlike Jane and Kirby, I was not going to endure him. However, those morons had already decided everything for me, and thus the next morning that psychedelically coloured oddball was waiting for me on the steps of the main building. I could never understand why it takes so long for people to figure out that they are not wanted. Seriously, hadn’t I alluded to him that I had no appetence to fuss over him? Wasn’t I rough or depreciating enough? Was I too friendly or had I hit him with my shoulder too weak? It was long ago, but I remember perfectly well how Kirby had followed me about everywhere in this same way, until I finally let him be near me. He was incredibly stubborn, and I admit that he was a genius when it came to essays and coursework. In the second year he acquainted me with Jane. I don’t know what he was expecting, but I didn’t have sex with her. I don’t think she has ever gotten laid, despite the fact that she is impossibly good-looking. I’m not sure of the reason – was she too skinny or her voice was too shrill…? I don’t even want to think about it. She liked me and that was clear. But she expressed it so blatantly that I wouldn’t, even out of pity… Well, that’s enough. I have no right to talk about doing anything out of pity.  
The weather was the complete opposite from that if the previous day–it was sunny and even rather warm. But I still had that terrible headache. I got out of the car and headed to the main building. I never tried to find my acquaintances, if they needed me they would find me themselves.  
So there he was, sitting on the fringe of the steps, clutching his backpack between his knees and reading some book full of poetry. I was surprised. He didn’t seem like a bookworm. His greasy bangs fell down into his face. He blew them up and away. For fuck’s sake, he constantly did so. He never tried to straighten them or to stick them behind his ear. He insisted on blowing them again and again, like an idiot. There was no alternative way to bypass him, so I headed straight for the doorway. Only few steps were left and I would be past him, but the newcomer jerked his head up, narrowing his eyes because of the sun, and smiled widely.  
“Oh, it’s you!” he exclaimed, as if I had been standing there for half an hour waiting for someone to finally notice me.  
I clenched my teeth, swearing to myself. Nevertheless, he had been waiting for me, the fucking parrot. This time he had black jeans on, but it hardly changed anything. While I was standing there mulling over whether I should greet him or simply walk away, he suddenly slammed his book shut—just slammed it, without a bookmark—shoved it to his backpack and quickly leapt to his feet, all the while smiling from ear to ear. At that moment I finally noticed that he had his nose and lower lip pierced. I could have sworn that those two small rings weren’t there yesterday. Maybe I just didn’t notice them. He stood a few steps above me, staring at me silently and waited for something. It suddenly dawned upon me, and I grimly shook my head:  
“Look, pal…”  
“It’s Frank.” he corrected me so sweetly and politely that I nearly threw up right there on those fucking steps. I had to control myself to not to cringe:  
“Fine, Frank.”  
“Hmm?”  
“It won’t work. Tell Jane to find you a different mommy.”  
“You mean…?” he slightly opened his mouth, raising his eyebrow.  
I nodded, continuing, “I’m not going to fuss over you. Jane has chosen the wrong person.”  
He didn’t blush, but I noticed the embarrassment, no, more like confusion on his face while he silently mused over something for five seconds. Of course he has understood me, and still he didn’t take his eyes off of me. Incredibly stupid creature.  
“It’s not Jane. No, she too, of course, but, actually, I did it myself,” He finished the sentence in a matter of fact way. The way he constructed his sentences was genuinely weird.  
“Then you have chosen the wrong person, mate.”  
“It’s Frank…”  
“I don’t care, okay?”  
What an inconceivable person. I had already explained everything to him, but he kept staring at me. He wasn’t even angry with me. He just stood there and looked at me attentively and a bit sad. And that suddenly terribly enraged me, I don’t even know why, but I was about to lose my temper. I took few steps towards him and we appeared to be on the same step. As I had thought, he was a head shorter than me. To distract myself from my anger, I began to wonder what age he might be. He could be anywhere between eighteen and twenty five. It was quite good range…  
“Listen,” His voice suddenly became very serious, and I was taken aback. “I don’t know anyone here except you and Jane. I can’t find her, so maybe you could explain to me what this is all about?”  
I was tacitly looking at him, while he continuously looked upwards at me. Turning his chin up, he calmly looked straight into my eyes. He wasn’t afraid of me. Not that I was ugly or considered myself a formidable person, but most people don’t like to look at my eyes. Jane once said that I have the look of a maniac. Matt disagreed with her. He instead insisted that I had a look of a serial killer, but the girl didn’t see any difference. And that one evidently didn’t mind whether I was a maniac or a killer.  
I’m still not sure why we walked to the lecture together. Maybe because this parrot had finally become serious for a moment—stopped playing the fool—and that flattered me. It was as if he had tried his best not to make me angry. Or merely because I was too lazy to try to get rid of him.  
And then I made the mistake of letting him sit next to me. The way I see it, there are only two things you can do during the lectures that goddamned university: either listen to the lecturer or sleep. But that little jerk didn't want to do either of those activities, oh no. He preferred to annoy me. Jane didn’t show up, so I didn't have anyone to divert his attention to. That newcomer drove me mad, he literally infuriated me, motherfucker. I couldn't sleep, because he giggled into his fist from time to time and whispered nonsense under his breath, distorting the professor's words. He chatted a lot and very fast. I opened my notebook and tried to take notes, but even then he persisted in annoying me. Leaning over my elbow, he rapturously stared at my scrawl:  
"Wow! You have great handwriting! Do you always write this way? My handwriting is awful and curved, look!" He shoved his notebook towards me so enthusiastically, that it took all my strength to restrain myself from hitting his joyful face with a book.  
And after that he started to eat chocolate bars... He took them out from his backpack one by one, unwrapped them almost completely, rustling the wrapping so loudly that the entire class could hear it. He proceeded to bite off half of the bar all at once, and then chewed it with concentration, staring at the blackboard and touching the corners of his mouth from time to time with the tip of his tongue. I was happy because for those solitary moments he left me alone. But the rustling and stupid smacking of his lips that he made so absolutely shamelessly… it made my insides shake and rumble with fury. I silently endured him, imagining how I would get revenge on Jane for her umpteenth seizure of pity. She probably liked that Iero. In fact, many people liked him, especially girls, but he stubbornly continued to act like no one could be a better guide along the difficult route to knowledge besides me. Fucking jerk. I don't remember if I have already told you about how I was annoyed with his tattoo... It was incredibly irritating. I don't know why... It was a trivial, rough drawing which sharply contrasted with his ludicrous haircut and the smile that always appeared on his lips.  
He devoured the chocolate while cheerfully, politely and monosyllabically talked to a bleached blonde from the back row. I continued to look at the scorpion, thinking about how his hoodie was horribly big for him – as evidenced by the collar. My mind simultaneously wandered between topics—I wondered about his age, hated Jane, listened to my migraine, and for some reason tried to remember the name of the girl he was talking to. And I was mad, god, I was so mad. I closed my eyes, trying to distract myself, to think of anything else.  
I still remember those thoughts as if they have never left my head… as if they settled there not so long ago. They still are so bright and fresh.  
I remembered that my mother had asked me to buy some coffee on my way home. I had to do it now because I had been promising her that I would get it since Monday, and father would never remember it. Matt owed me a hundred bucks for the exam I failed – it was his fault. My thoughts began to flow freely and I was envisioning finally getting my car painted. Then I saw myself sitting in front of the blank sheet of paper, feeling the growing panic. Then my hand started to run fast, sketching out the first strokes. To force oneself to draw the first strokes is always the most difficult part. Afterwards, everything falls into place.  
"Gerard, are you asleep?"  
I heard him whisper my name in his cheerful tone, but with the wrong stress, goddamit. And I stopped drawing. I forgot about the coffee, about the exam, about what my favourite colour was... Instead I perfectly visualized myself turning around, grabbing Frank by his hair so tight that he would scream in pain, and hammering his face down into the desk. Over and over again, as strong as I can. And he finally shuts his mouth. He stops talking nonsense with his fucking mouth—just screams something unintelligible, choking on his tears and blood, which would be gushing from his nose and dripping down his chin... I must be a madman. But the point of it wouldn't be to hurt him. The point was for him to get the message and finally shut up. But the real newcomer wasn't going to. He kept asking me whether I was asleep and in the end he blew into my ear. It was so unexpected that I twitched and instantly opened my eyes. The guy just stared at me silently, holding a piece of chocolate in his mouth. He even stopped chewing, just concentrating on me with his honest eyes.  
"Never do it again," I abruptly mumbled, unsure of whether I had imagined it.  
"But I didn't do anything," He shrugged, looking puzzled and began to move his jaw again. He lifted up his hand and calmly stroked my earlobe with his finger. And then I hit him.


End file.
